How To Influence Without Authority

Level up your impact, your influence and your career

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Welcome to Developing Skills - Skills for Developers looking to develop their careers.

Tip of The Week: Become Better At Influencing Without Authority

As a software engineer being able to influence without authority is a crucial skill. It helps you gain support from stakeholders, improve collaboration, and drive technical decision making.

So what is it?

Influencing without authority is the ability to shape decisions and drive actions without holding hierarchical power over others. It is particularly valuable when projects involve multiple teams, each contributing their expertise to achieve organisational goals.

You don’t need to be the most senior person in the room to have influence. Building you soft skills such as: deep listening, effective assertion, and self-awareness can allow you to influence people around you.

Here’s 8 more tips to improve your influence:

1. Build credibility and trust - leverage your expertise, speak the language of your colleagues (including the non-technical ones), and demonstrate an understanding and empathy for their needs, show mutual respect and be reliable.

2. Build allies and leverage their support - Cultivate a solid network of allies within your organisation. Allies can provide everything from momentum through to actual authority if you find a high level sponsor.

3. Find the common ground - understand other's needs and align your goals with theirs. Show how what you’re pushing for aligns with their goals.

4. Listen to understand - to effectively communicate, listen carefully to your audience, empathising with their needs and asking questions to really understand their point of view.

5. Use storytelling - Passionate storytelling can inspire others and create a shared sense of purpose.

6. Bring solutions, not more problems - Present practical solutions. Don’t present a problem then add more problems to the pile. Being someone who proactively solves problems builds credibility.

7. Leave you ego at the door - Focus on acting with high emotional intelligence and a low ego. Ensure your mindset is geared towards collaboration and if necessary compromise to find the best solution for all.

8. Expect push back - accept that resistance is a natural part of the influencing process. Instead of being disheartened view it as a sign that this is viewed as a significant change, they look to understand why and offer re-assurance.

Two Ways I Can Help You Level Up As A Software Engineer:

1. I write another newsletter, Coding Challenges that helps you become a better software engineer through coding challenges that build real applications.

2. I have some courses available:

   1. Build Your Own Redis Server (Python Edition) which guides you through solving the Redis Coding Challenge in Python.

   2. Build Your Own Shell (Go Edition) which guides you through solving the Shell Coding Challenge in Go.